Payments from the government have become the fastest-growing source of income for Americans, according to a new study.

A report by the Economic Innovation Group (EIG), a public policy research organization, titled “The Great Transfer-mation,” states that Americans have become substantially more dependent on government support, with the share of national income coming from transfer payments more than doubling over the past 50 years.

One factor driving much of the shift from private income to government dependence is that the U.S. population is, on average, getting older. Of all government assistance payments in 2022, 56 percent went to the elderly, mostly for Medicare, the EIG report stated.

The growth in transfer payments have taken their toll on state and federal budgets, with public pensions increasingly falling behind on their ability to pay, according to a 2024 report by Reason Foundation’s Pension Integrity Project. Continue reading…

Rail transit officials in California’s Bay Area have been ordered to pay more than $7 million to transit workers who were fired because they refused to get a COVID-19 vaccine years ago.

On Oct. 23, a federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sided with six former San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) workers who had refused to get the vaccine for religious purposes.

BART was ordered to pay the group more than $7.8 million, with each individual receiving between $1.2 million and $1.5 million, the Pacific Justice Institute, which represented the transit workers in the trial, said in a statement on Oct. 24. The institute, a law firm representing the six former employees since 2022, said the eight-person jury deliberated for two days this week before returning the verdict that awarded the employees the compensation. Continue reading…

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